A Day of Domesticity!

All right, I know it's been months since I last posted anything, and honestly, I have several posts under construction, and I'll finish them eventually. But, I finally realized that not all posts need pictures, even though they are what people like to see. I mean, what is the point without photos?

Well, I've now looked at some top blogs and I'm happy to say that not all of them have photos, so I can post every now and then without them.

So the point of this blog is that as much as I would love to be totally domestic, I work full-time and have to juggle my domesticity with lack of time and energy for said domesticity. But, every now and then I get to spend a few hours being completely domestic. This weekend was one of those times. The future mayor of Provo is away at a conference and I've had the house to myself since Wednesday. What to do (meaning, which of my projects will I tackle first)?

I've been reading Julie & Julia, which is great but for the language. And it inspired me to try something new. I brought home a cookbook by Paul Prudhomme several years ago and have never tried any of the recipes. So why not? I found one for seafood stuffed zucchini and since I have plenty of both on hand, gave it a shot.

Wow, it was kind of intense. It actually called for margarine, something I haven't purchased for over a decade. I didn't have to make a roux, but I may as well have, because by the time the vegetables and butter and margarine were finally completed, they were dark brown. The dish took about 75 minutes to complete, and included the aforementioned stuffing, a fabulous cream sauce, and zucchini boats, all brought together at the conclusion of the dish.

I filled the zucchini boats with the shrimp, crab, and veggie stuffing, topped it with the cream sauce and took a fork full. It had the potential to be amazingly incredible and rich and deep flavored. However, I halved the recipe and while combining the seasoning mix of peppers, onion powder, garlic powder, salt and other seasonings, I misread 1.5 teaspoons of salt for 1.5 tablespoons of salt. Need I say more?

I awoke this morning and tackled the weeds in the flower bed, which raged out of control while I was in St. Louis with Chris and Lacy. I spent about 2 hours pulling weeds and trying to tame the beds again. It was deeply satisfying.

I went to a class on weed control at the Utah Water Conservancy center a few weeks ago. I learned about how to control some of our most obnoxious weeds (like bindweed or wild morning glory). It was a great class and thanks to what the weed expert taught I have a focused approach in dealing with weeds now.

For example, we learned that bind weed lives for 30 years or more. It's pretty hard to kill, but it can be killed if the vines are torn away from the root on a regular basis. And, if one can wait until the vines bloom before tearing them away, the result is more devastating to the root. So, now I'm a bind weed hunter. I wait patiently for it to bloom, and then: rip it apart with glee! I just needed a plan and now I'm executing the plan(t).

Later I got to go shopping with Talara and Madi for bedding for Madi's new room. We found a comforter set, great sheets, and adorable window treatments. Madi picked a design with several shades of purple on white. I can't wait to see everything put together.

Next I tackled the sewing room. I have a large cutting table in the middle of the room and it is stacked high with projects waiting to be done. It's like Christmas every time I start wading through the piles. What do to first?

1. Made pattern for peepee teepees. Talara and I saw these in Mesa and thought there were too cute. A miniature terry and flannel teepee that gets placed over the hoo hoo of baby boys while being changed to keep the diaper changer dry until the new diaper can be secured. Expect picture soon.
2. Completed a half-made receiving blanket. Will post instructions soon.
3. Made red cowboy fabric duvet for cabin. Looks great! Will finish the dust ruffle and maybe tooled leather look pillows before going to bed.

Wow, an entire day being domestic. Heavenly.

Little Bits of Chocolate Heaven

Well, it took a bit, but I mastered the cake bite thing. The results are perfectly shaped melt-in-your-mouth bits of chocolate heaven.

The steps:
1. Bake a cake, any cake. I baked Devil's Food.
2. Crumble the cake into fine crumbs.
3. Mix in some kind of gooey sweet stuff. I mixed half of the cake with chocolate fudge topping (about half the jar).
The other half was mixed with coconut/pecan frosting for German Chocolate cake. The result is a gooey play doh.
4. Roll the mixture into balls.
5. Place on wax paper and place in the fridge or freezer until balls are firm.
6. Melt coating and coat balls with coating and let them set up.
7. To create my perfectly formed bites, I used a candy mold.
8. I coated the inside of the mold with 3 thin layers of chocolate.
9. Once the balls were thawed enough to be moldable, I mashed them into the mold to shape them tightly.
10. I pulled the balls out of the mold, added a bit of melted chocolate and put the balls back in the mold.
11. Then I poured more chocolate around the balls and over the top.
12. Once the chocolate was cooled (about 5 minutes), I popped the bites out of the mold and drizzled melted white chocolate over them.



These are the chocolate fudge bites. They are rich and deep in flavor.
















These are the coconut/pecan bites. They are absolutely incredible!


The journey to get here was long, but worth it!

Sometimes I Just Get Lucky!

This is my favorite sofa, that I got from Evans Gatehouse. It's wonderfully soft and best of all is that it's slip-covered and I can and have washed the entire thing in the washing machine!


I love this sofa so much that I ordered another Lee Coverall Sofa, but in a different design and fabric.
In the middle of the cake bite/pop obsession, the new sofa and chair were delivered. I ordered them about six weeks ago and when they were ordered, I was told not to expect them for 8 or more weeks, which was fine since they were going to take the place of a sofa set that is going to a vacation home that is not built yet.






This is the fabric I selected, a brown tweed. There was a contemporary set at the Gatehouse in the same fabric that I liked very much. I just hoped it would work on the design I selected.




The factory got my new set done in record time! So, on Wednesday afternoon, my new set was delivered. And I got to see the design and fabric together for the first time, which is a scary thing, but exciting too.













I really really like them! They are a better scale for the room. I still need to add pillows to dress them up, but I got lucky. Good thing too, because I could never afford to replace them. Now I won't have to; I can just order new slip covers if I get tired of the brown ones.